dip!

On Monday, we learned dips in rumba. I am most mightily impressed with D, my dance partner. That is all.

Continental Rock'n'Roll, week 1 of 4

Preliminary sidenote: went to a ceilidh on Saturday. It snapped me firmly back into dancing headspace.

Today I went along to my first Rock'n'Roll class, with some trepidation beforehand as the website described it as energetic. In this lesson, we learned the basic step (kick, ball-change, kick, kick - comes to a 6-count) and two figures. Felt mildly incompetent during the exercises, but once we started actually dancing with partners I felt a lot better, presumably because I'd had more practice by then, rather than some tremendous aversion to solo technical exercises on my part. Hmmm. Another post for another time, I think.

The first figure we learned was simply swapping places, which I've seen in swing dancing elsewhere, and which was simple enough. The second figure, the Four Kicks, was somewhat more complicated (involving some turning around), but what I need to remember in particular is that you don't turn back forwards until you have kicked once facing backward, and to pull the kicking leg in closely when turning, to make the turning easier. Otherwise, it's pretty straightforward as well.

I think I enjoy this style. The main difference I find do ballroom at the moment is that I don't think I moved backwards once in the entire lesson. Maybe this will happen later, or perhaps it's just not part of the style. As could be expected from the first session of a beginners' class, I missed strong leading, but I think that will improve over time as well. Managed to drag along my friend R., who didn't run screaming, and who has even said he'll come along next week. Hurrah!

General Dancing

Feeling really out of it - definitely not in dancing headspace. Turned up late and found a huge shortage of men. Started with a Quickstep where I managed to step on myself (luckily not very hard), then somewhat later a Tango where I managed somewhat passably, but only just. Still rubbish at Jive, though at least it was a shortish and familiar song, and I had a few good moments there (surprisingly, considering how much I usually dislike Jive), and was exceedingly lucky to get someone for last Waltz. Very much felt the absence of one of our usual people, who is away for the weekend - it's just less fun without him to say silly things to. *whinge*

On the other hand, a PLOT has been hatched, which made it all better :)

Dancesport Modern A, week 1 of 7

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I am so bloody incompetent it's not even funny.

Right. Now that that's out of the way... This is my first proper termtime visit to a Modern A class, after attending the combined Dancesport Modern/Latin A class intermittently over the vac, and I'm feeling ever so slightly out of my depth. Presently I'm attributing this to the fact I seem to have a steeper-than-average learning curve when it comes to dancing, as well as to missing terminology and prior knowledge on my part.

The first half of the lesson was Foxtrot, mainly exercises. My sense of balance is appalling when I'm on my own, so the walking exercises were frustratingly hard, even though they shouldn't be. It's my inherent non-dancerliness coming out. So. The exercise consisted of combining heel steps and toe steps with the rising and falling and the upper body turning. I'm not even convinced I got the heel and toe steps right. Need to ask someone about those at some point. For this exercise we needed to walk in as straight a line as possible, which I didn't realise in the beginning. Corrected that soon enough, though. Some more practice, and I should almost get to be passable at Foxtrot... Ha.

I thought Waltz would be less frustrating, but it was actually more so. At this point, the regular instructor had to head off, and a dep stepped in (with whom I've had classes before that I've enjoyed). There is where the lack of terminology and prior knowledge comes in. Because I rather foolishly went straight to Improvers last term [1] and had to miss some of those classes, I lack some of the steps the dep was describing as simple. I need to investigate impetus turns and weaves, and work out what the footwork for those is, so that I don't look and feel quite as stupid next time around. The other thing we learnt that I should probably note down here is that one's legs should always brush past each other in waltz, so that the side step is almost a bit more to the back (or front if you're a chap) initially rather than just straight out to the side.

There was also some Quickstep at the end, but I sat that out because I couldn't find a dance partner and was feeling grumpy and frustrated anyway, particularly with one more-advanced couple (whom I have no objection to personally - I was just in a baddish mood at this point) doing stuff that I know I will have huge amounts of trouble getting my head around if I ever manage to learn it. I suspect it was Modern B or C-level stuff, so I shouldn't be too angsty about it, but... Meh.

Hmmm. Apologies for all the negativity in so early a post. It should (hopefully!) get better as time passes.

[1] Having started and dropped out of something like three terms of Beginners' classes due to scheduling problems, I just couldn't face the prospect of one more, so I went into Improvers last term and mostly just about managed.

first post!

In a fit of impetuosity I've decided to start a dance blog. I'm not sure why. It's not as though the world/web *really* needs another blog, much less about something I'm not *actually* all that good at. So I guess I'm to some extent writing about my own struggle to learn to dance semi-decently while being essentially clumsy and graceless. If you can cope with that, I'd love to have a bit of an audience.